Immanuel Casto in concert in Florence: “Love is a privilege not a duty”
Beautiful, with an above average intelligence (he is president of the Canteen Italy), provocative and exhibitionist – these four words can only partially describe the artistic genius of Immanuel Casto.
Casto has collected over 50 million views with his irreverent video clips on YouTube and has sold thousands of copies of his board games (from the historian Ring the last arrived Rainbow pets).
Always LGBTQIA + community activistgodfather of some national Pride, guest ai Diversity Awards (2019 and 2020).
The “Casto Divo” as fans like to call him will be in concert Thursday 21 July to space Ultravox at the Cascine Amphitheater in Florence.
The live will be a real show, with full band and corps de ballet, an opportunity to celebrate and also the last ten years of “Music for adults”, disco of the consecration of his groove porn poster in a pop key, in addition to the songs from the new album “Malpractice”.
The opening of the concert is entrusted to KARMA Beclectic and pungent drag duo, regular guests in the program Hello Male hosted by Nunzia De Girolamo on Rai1 every Saturday evening, after last season spent in Live propaganda, and currently engaged in their theatrical tour of their debut ‘Le Dive con Qualcosa in Più’.
Immanuel Casto – © https://www.facebook.com/CastoImmanuel
Here is our interview
You were born artistically in 2011, the short circuit that made you famous is that you talked about sex in a “comical” way, is that it?
It was the fact that I talked about sex with comedy but above all with a certain type of extremely refined, glamorous image. We have internalized the sexuality-vulgarity association on a cultural level. If I say the word vulgar, most people think about sex. I believe instead that vulgarity is what belongs to the vulgar, sexuality, on the other hand, can also be treated with elegance. My product without image would not work, when I write a song I already imagine the video. I think it was this dissonance between explicit words and images that created interest when I debuted.
You are back live after so many years also due to Covid, how is it to start performing live again?
The covid as we know for the workers of the show has been particularly hard, in fact this estate we are all rightly on tour. It is worth mentioning that live shows represent the main income for musicians, even for names much more mainstream than mine. The earnings certainly do not come from streaming listening. There was a lot of need and a great desire to come back live but after several years of abstinence I was a bit afraid. Instead, as in the classic metaphor of the bicycle, I am finding myself very well, I am very happy and I feel really at ease. I’m already thinking about the future and other dates. I am also happy to return to Florence because here I did my first concert with a paying audience in 2009. It was my baptism of fire which I am very fond of.
It is a problem the faith on the part of some people that they have the right to be loved because it implies that others have a duty to love them
You have very loyal fans, but your audience is at the same time very transversal
Absolutely yes and it is one of the things that makes me most proud. There is nothing wrong with having a sectoral audience, but I’m glad I don’t have one. Also because in my opinion it gives greater value to the messages I want to send. One thing I find that I find little use for how legitimate it is a communication approach that I define as ‘preaching to the already converted’ and a lot is being done today on social media by turning exclusively to their own bubble to obtain consents but there is rarely the desire to create a dialogue. Having a heterogeneous audience I can groped to do it. A trait that I recognize in my audience is curiosity, it is an extremely respectful and interested public and I have great esteem for it.
During the pandemic I listened with great pleasure “There is mail for Casto”, a video in which you answered the questions of your followers relating above all to problems in couples and relationships. What are the questions you are asked most often?
The most common of all to date is “I am in love with person X, but person X does not reciprocate, what should I do”. This is quite indicative of the difficulty we have in losing the emotional availability of others. It is absolutely not something to insist on instead there are a lot of books that teach how to seduce, how to conquer. It makes no sense, relationships must start from something spontaneous, if there is no mutuality you simply have to move on, it is useless to stand there and struggle.
It’s a big problem the faith on the part of some people that they have the right to be loved because it implies that others have a duty to love them. I have the right to be loved, I have to access this possibility but I have no guarantee. Love is a privilege, woe to swap rights for privileges, to convince oneself that one has the right to a certain emotional gratification that if it does not arrive then disappointment is triggered and it is inevitable to implement a series of fairly destructive behaviors towards oneself and towards others.
I know that you are a very intelligent person, ironic and you like to get, but I also know that you have a romantic side. So the question everyone would like to ask you is: are you in love right now?
My relationship status is now zero and that’s fine because I’m totally focused on something else. I absolutely do not exclude the possibility that it may occur, however, at the moment it is not a priority. I realize that my expectations of relationships have changed. I was once strongly fusional and I wanted great love. I had some great loves, I am deeply grateful even if they lasted over time which then ran out. Now my idea of a relationship is just being comfortable with someone when we see each other and when we are not together give yourself emotional support against that fatigue that life inevitably gives, nothing else.
Malpractice, Emanuele Casto